2010 - In Retrospective in Kevincm land

Time to do some naval gazing, and look back in the year of travel for me.

Firstly, where did I go this year?

Stats: 44179 Miles flown, 24 Segments
Longest Leg:  Seoul Inchon ICN- London Heathrow LHR 5520 Miles
Shortest Leg: Dublin DUB- Birmingham UK BHX, 200 miles
New Airports and Places:

• Frankfurt-am-Main FRA
• Atlanta Hartslefield Jackson ATL
• Seoul Inchon ICN
• Hong Kong HKG
• Denver International DEN

Equipment Flown

• Boeing 737-300    1
• Boeing 737-500    2
• Boeing 757-200    1
• Boeing 767-300ER    3
• Boeing 777-200ER    6
• Bombardier CRJ700    2
• Embaer ERJ 145    1
• Airbus A319    2
• Airbus A320    5
• Airbus A330    1

New Airlines

• Continental Airlines
• Lufthansa
• Asiana Airlines
• Thai Airways

Classes Flown: 

• Economy (Y)    16
• Business (C)    4
• First (F)    4

Status Gains:

• Air France Gold

Status Holds (to come):

• BMI Gold.. Just - as you'll find out in "Blame Canada!"

Status Losses (to come)

• Continental Gold Elite
• Hyatt Platinum

High Point of the Year - Quite simply, my first First Class Long Haul Leg from Frankfurt to Seoul with Asiana Airlines.  Simply excellent service and an excellent airline


Low Point of the Year - Being stuck in Atlanta for an extra night when I missed my flight.

Looking forward to next year - The race for requalification continues, even with the looming merger of Diamond Club with Miles and More. Best to be prepared in all circumstances.  Already 2 runs have been booked, with a 3rd trip around the corner.  Hotels should be interesting with my spend split across Hyatt and Intercontinental Hotel Group Hotels. And after the Diamond Club merger to Miles and More? I've yet to think ahead that far.

And hoping there are some darn good mistake fares.

Happy travels in 2011!

Updating something that's good - The Great Circle Mapper (Review).

In a lot of my trip reports (and a lot of others I read), you'll find a little map in there 9 out of 10 times.

I use and prefer the maps generated by Karl L. Swartz's Great Circle Mapper (old version).

Here's one generated by the old version

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper

Well it seems Karl has been very busy and has released gcmap.com and has put some real work into it. Little things for example... like airport labels..

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper

They're also scalable maps too...

 

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper

And perhaps most visually exciting is the Blue Marble overlay

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper

It's also configurable for non airline geeks so when you get a map out, and say you're going from LHR-ORD, there's an English translation..

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper

Overall - a very worthy update to a very worthy tool.

Highly recommended if for the visual impact this tool has its purposes.