If only modern jet aircraft had the personality and flair of an old DC-8.

Ah yes, it's all coming back, I can remember a black and white advertisement on TV for BOAC, with the voice over of some terribly British Captain saying someting about BOAC VC10 with Hushpower engines.  Hushpower engines, they must be good...

I have never paid much credence to the ratings scores for any articles on ABT, though they do give a general indication as to whether a comment is on track or not.  The scores, however in this thread are interesting in that either somebody has gone into the thread with a sense of malice and pushed everyone down, or the thread as a whole is felt inappropriate to ABT. Would be interesting to get a view, for nothing else by curiosity's sake.

Yes please, could someone explain the ratings scores and how that works.

More people here interested in business lounges than in aviation. Sad but true.

It's call Australian Business Traveller for a reason!

"More people here interested in business lounges than in aviation. Sad but true." LOL Serge :P

That'd be because we're not an aviation site.

We're not 'Australian Aviation' (although there is such a site/mag, and quite commendable) – we're 'Australian Business Traveller', so the majority of readers come here for news regarding business travel – which leans towards premium seats & suites, lounges, points & loyalty programs and other things which can be broadly categorised as falling within the "passenger experience", as well as other topics of interest to the business traveller (outside of travel per se).

David, with all respect there is quite moot point. Where would be all those business travelers (and even this very site!) without aviation? So I believe every air traveler as least must have some kind of fascination for aircrafts. When I where young I use to have a lot of such fascination, but since I started to fly Europe quite periodically I lost almost all of it. Even then 24 hours one way (24, Carl!!!) in economy class is way too much to enjoy. And it became worse with each year. Then 7 or so years ago when I flown back to Australia by BA they put be in business, Since then I said to myself I would fly business long distances or not fly at all – why I have to start and finish my holiday by torturing myself for 24 hours? Do I hate myself that much? If I cannot find cheap enough deal or cannot justify spending that much money I will rather have holiday in Australia. Not that I too rich or put my nose too high – I am perfectly fine to have MEL-SID hop in economy (and believe that it is sheer waste of money to fly this distance in business), but my tolerance finish somewhere at 4 hours of flight.

Why I telling this? Because since I stop flying economy to Europe my fascination about aircraft came back! So, sorry one more time, IMHO your arguments are lame. In fact very lame.

David, with all respect there is quite moot point.

I'd respectfully disagree, and here's why – and as you'll see, we have in fact put a lot of thought into this, even before we launched AusBT.

Where would be all those business travelers (and even this very site!) without aviation?

Setting  aside the fact that one can also drive a car or ride a train for business travel (indeed, in Europe for example, high-speed rail is very popular with business travellers) – yes, flying is an integral part of modern business travel. Note that I differentiate flying from aviation - it's the action rather than the mechanism –  in the same way that one might differentiate driving from 'motoring'.

Just because you drive a car, or are driven in one, doesn't mean you are 'into' motoring, doesn't mean you're a car enthusiast. Ditto for catching a train: most people commute to work on a train but they're certainly not train 'enthusiasts'.

So I believe every air traveler as least must have some kind of fascination for aircrafts.

Nope - see above.

Now, I'll say that many regular travellers (let's not call them 'frequent flyers' for the moment, because sometimes 'frequent flyer' can become muddied through intimate association with the people on frequent flyer forums, the majority of whom do indeed appear to be aviation enthusiasts and 'armchair airline CEOs', which is certainly different to being a regular flyer / business traveller) - many 'regular travellers' are likely to have an active interest in the 'mode' of their transportation, ie in the aircraft – but this can just be limited to appreciating the experience in a 747 vs A380, and hence why there's such interest in new aircraft such as the A350 and Boeing 787, and hence why we report on these.

But that certainly doesn't mean they are into 'aviation' in the broader sense of old aircraft and the industry – it can be more from a 'passenger experience' perspective. This could also just be limited to things like business & first class seats & suites, or knowing the best seats on a certain plane (as they fly often, they become savvy on this stuff and it makes a real difference to the frequent business traveller.)

Why I telling this? Because since I stop flying economy to Europe my fascination about aircraft came back!

Your use of the word' fascination' is an interesting one, and no doubt appropriate for you and many others, Serg.

But our core readership, our primary audience –  based on assessing the market before we launched AusBT and informed by the five years since we launched – is not one that is 'fascinated' about aircraft or deeply 'into' aviation.

That doesn't mean we don't have readers 'who like both', as some readers have offered. There is a cross-over – there's a related and inherent secondary (or even tertiary) audience segment there. We've always been aware of that and made allowances for it. It comes with the territory, because some of what we write about engages those readers of ours who do have that interest in addition to being regular travellers.

But AusBT's primary audience has always been and will always be people who travel for business and care about the things I've outlined earlier, rather than about 'aviation' per se.

"So I believe every air traveler as least must have some kind of fascination for aircrafts."

Why would every person who gets on a plane be fascinated about aircraft? Air travel is a necessity. So is a bed: I sleep on one but I'm not fascinated about it, it just does what I need it to do. I use a fridge, but am also not fascinated about it, I just open the door and put my food in and out. Sort of like a plane: I need to fly on one but I'm not fascinated about it, I just step on and off and get on with my day.

Perhaps simply because safety of your bacon does not depend on bed that you sleeping on?

The safety of my bacon would depend on the temperature of my fridge - still doesn't mean I'm fascinated by it. Believe it or not, not everybody is an avgeek, or a bacongeek.

So according to David’s, yours and some others logic there are quite a few (read majority) very serious business users here that have no interest whatsoever in aviation and airplanes but rather came here to read about lounges, credit cards and points. Yet they came to Q&A section (by no means biggest section here!), dig out not immediately visible thread that clearly named as being airplane related one, read all that long posts just to show their disgust by negative voting? Do not you found it …errr… strange? If I am not interested in certain topics (like China airline news or Virgin points for example) I simply skip them, forget to came down to comments and put silly votes! I am certain about wannabe teens :-)))))

So according to David’s, yours and some others logic there are quite a few (read majority) very serious business users here that have no interest whatsoever in aviation and airplanes but rather came here to read about lounges, credit cards and points.

Re-read my comments, Serge – they may have some interest in their mode of transport (which can scale to include airplanes and even 'aviation' without being hardcore) but yes, for all 'business travellers' their primary interest on AusBT would be those areas you've mentioned.

Yet they came to Q&A section (by no means biggest section here!), dig out not immediately visible thread that clearly named as being airplane related one, read all that long posts just to show their disgust by negative voting?

You're assuming those highly-focussed business travellers did the down-voting but I can see no evidence on which to base such an assumption. More likely the first wave of down-voting came from people who are AusBT regulars who are dismissive of the 'avgeek' content (because they can find such elsewhere if they choose) while the second and larger wave of voters are people who disagree with your specific follow-on comments.

“You're assuming those highly-focussed business travellers did the down-voting”

This is what I conclude your post imply. I personally do not believe that CEOs reading anything on this site that not in their direct interest. And sure enough they would give a flick to post in Q&A that discuss old airplane. My last post been done with tongue in cheek.

Cheers

Bravo.