A Mega itinerary for a Mega Do!
This past Friday night the itinerary for the 2010 Star Mega Do was announced at a party in Marina del Ray, California. The room was packed with veterans from the 2009 edition and other FlyerTalkers who all wanted to be involved in the event as well as folks looking for a good party out on the West coast. Some of the photos suggest there were upwards of 50 folks crowded into the room for the event; the bar tab suggests even more. Either way, this luck group was the first to hear the official news.
And now that I’ve recovered from the rather vicious hangover (Marty, I’m gonna get even!) here’s the itinerary for everyone else to chew on:
Monday, November 1
JFK-FRA: We expect that to be on the LH A380 though the aircraft is not yet confirmed to be on that route.
Tuesday, November 2
Arrive FRA. Party with *A and LH in FRA.
*For folks starting in Europe you will be invited to join on Tuesday evening
Wednesday, November 3
FRA-IAH. Arrive IAH and dinner with CO.
*For folks who want to only do the USA part of the event you’ll be joining us in IAH for the dinner or tomorrow morning for the tours.
Thursday, November 4
CO tours in IAH.
Thursday, November 4 – Evening
The First Annual Frequent Traveler Awards!
Built on the legacy of The Freddies, the FT Awards will allow the community to honor the loyalty programs that make everything we do just a bit more fun.
Friday, November 5
Charter flight!
IAH-PHX: Meet with US Airways in PHX
PHX-PAE: Fly in to an airport that doesn’t really see traditional commercial service (cool new dot/line) and go on a special tour of the Boeing factory where the 747-8i is being built.
Party in Seattle area Friday night
Saturday, November 6
Charter flight back to either Chicago or Houston, depending on which aircraft we end up chartering.
We thought we had figured out the details of which aircraft we’d be using for the charter but we had a last minute entrant from another carrier that is interested in providing us with that service. So we are still working out the details and hope to have more specific pricing and an answer to which aircraft we’ll be using (747, MD-11 or 753/73E/738s) in the very near future.
Regarding pricing of the event, we expect that the charter price point will be at or below last year’s price. Depending on the aircraft selected there will be a mix of F, C, E+ and E- available. The TATL flights will be about the same price in Y (~$600) and will be more expensive in C (~$3000).
We’re getting a great rate with Starwood for the hotels along the way and there will likely be a Fast Track promo for status associated with it.
A ton more Star MegaDo videos
Sure, it has taken way longer than it probably should have, but I’ve finally managed to get a bunch more videos uploaded. These are mostly from the presentation on Friday from Thierry Antinori, Lufthansa’s Executive Vice President Marketing & Sales and Member of the Executive Board though the first one is the opening greeting from Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber.
Enjoy!
Help Alliance check presentation
During the charter flights, we held an on-board raffle to raise money for charity. On Friday, November 20, 2009, we delivered the first check from this campaign. It was a check for $3000, given to the Help Alliance, a charity run by Lufthansa staff members. An overview of all Help Alliance projects can be found here. The money raised for Help Alliance during the StarMegaDO is being put to use in a school project in South Africa. FlyerTalkers will be able to follow the status of the project as it progresses, and even participate more directly.
Many more event pictures now available!
![295-110309_0268[1]](http://www.starmegado.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/295-110309_02681.jpg "295-110309_0268[1]")
We’ve created a special picture blog of photos from the events. Visit them visit them here:
http://www.starmegado.com/plogger/
Feel free to click on the pictures and post comments, or select some for downloading.
More photos from the Airbus factory tour
Just a few more photos from inside the final assembly building at Toulouse…
Plane spotting at Toulouse
What great fun to be at the factory and see the planes from so many carriers all in one place. And there were plenty to be seen. Check out some of these beauties:
This is the plane we were touring in all day:
Not all the planes on the ground were Airbus, but they were still cool:
Some of the bigger birds on display:
Of course, the main focus of the visit to Toulouse was plane spotting of a different kind. We were there to tour the A380 final assembly line. We did, and it was amazing. More stories, video and photos from that soon.
Inspecting the crew rest bunks
As a group of mostly very frequent flyers, getting to go behind the scenes and see the other side of the operations is always interesting. After all, we’ spend plenty of time on the customer side. Hitting up the crew side is the next step in the adventure. So when Lufthansa opened up access to their Technik facility – their maintenance operations – scores of our group showed up to take part.
Among other things, the group wandered through a couple planes that were in for their regular maintenance checks. These planes are essentially fully disassembled and then put back together, with various bits replaced and refreshed along the way. One of the more popular scenes during these tours were the visits to the crew rest bunks. They may not be glamorous, but they are fully flat, quiet and dark. Not too shabby. I could travel like that. Then again, I’ve been in an overhead bin and didn’t think it was all that bad.
Anyways, here are pictures of some folks having fun in the crew rest bunks:
Videos from Oslo and StarMegaDo
I’m not a great videographer and probably worse at video editing. But I have a bunch of content that I’ve been slowly getting uploaded. Here are a few clips from various bits of the Oslo stop.
Tommy777 exits the fast way
At the end of the SAS event they had Tommy777 exit the plane that they were using for the demo. The fast way. They popped the back door (2R) and he came sliding down. Very cool.
Inside the A380 final assembly building
It has been a few days since my last post about the A380 factory tour and most of faculties have finally returned. You’ve seen many of the pictures already but I also have some video shot inside the factory with Richard Carcaillet, the Director of Product Marketing for the A380. He talks about some of the details on the final assembly, demand for the A380 and assembly time, as well as the value proposition for the aircraft.
There are also a couple videos from inside the mock-up center. Airbus uses the facility to show off interior design options to customers from seating arrangements to overhead bins to trim details. I never thought I’d see eleven different cabin configurations on a single plane but there they were in the A380 mock-up. Very cool stuff, though sadly no photos allowed inside the mock-ups. Still pretty interesting.