British Airways has been confirmed as a fourth tier one sponsor to the London Olympics to be held in 2012. The sponsorship deal was on the expected lines and was expected. The sponsorship is rumoured to be around £50m. More sponsors are to be announced later this month.

London Olympics has three other big brand sponsors in Lloyds TSB in the banking sector, EDF Energy in the utilities sector and Adidas in sportswear domain.

Along with the sponsorship, BA will be the official carrier for British athletes for Beijing Olympics later this year and to the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.

"British Airways is a natural partner for London 2012 and we are proud to become part of the team that makes the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games a success," BA CEO Willie Walsh chief executive said in a statement.

In what could be termed as a disturbing trend for airliners, it has been reported that trains have become the No.1 choice for transportation for people in the UK. Planes come a distant second and that too, reluctantly.

The train connection within Europe seems to have outclassed its aerial competitor. Excellent fast trains like Eurostar between countries in Europe have ensured that trains would secure the prime position for travelling. This is coupled with cheaper fares offered on trains when compared to ‘usually relatively expensive’ flights. Also, travelling by trains would ensure that travellers would have extra money that could be spent while holidaying. Plus, there is the evergreen agitation against airliners regarding air and sound pollution.

Although there has been a steady increase in air travel for the past four decades, the rate of increase has dipped drastically since 2006. The fall in number of flyers is limited to UK alone and the trend hasn’t spread to rest of Europe (as yet).

Here are some numbers regarding current air travel:

Half of the UK population do not fly at all in any year - those who do take more than two return trips on average.

Higher income households take more flights, single people and childless couples fly more than families, and those who own property abroad fly often.

Households with total earnings over £115,000 per year take around 60 per cent more trips per year than those earning less than £40,000.

Regional airports have continued to grow at a faster rate than London airports, and in 2006 handled 42 per cent of passengers at UK airports.

Aer Lingus, the official carrier of Republic of Ireland has tied up with JetBlue in the United States to offer its passengers the comfort of booking a single ticket between Ireland and over 40 destinations in the US. This venture would start at the end of April while ticket sales would go off a month earlier.

Aer Lingus flies to JF Kennedy Airport in New York and fliers from Ireland will be able to connect to JetBlue flight without the need of checking out and checking in their luggage. Well, they still have to go through security clearance though.

Similarly, JetBlue passengers in the US can check in their luggage at a JetBlue terminal in the US and check them out when they arrive at Ireland at an Aer Lingus terminal.

This partnership will benefit Aer Lingus than its US partner. Aer Lingus will be seen as a premier carrier to fly to Ireland from North America.

As we all know already, Airbus A380 is the biggest bird to hit the sky. Recently, a few airliners including Singapore Airlines had started commercial services with the A380. Other airliners have ordered this aircraft long time back and are yet to get the delivery, chances are slim that they would be getting it on time.

On Gillesvidal, I found a 360⁰ interactive view of the Airbus A380 cockpit. The cockpit is huge and it's as big as a mini truck. The dashboard is filled with monitors, switches and other controls. It isn't just the dashboard, even the roof space is well utilised by placing ports and controls.

Pilot seats are bucket seats for maximum comfort and as many as 4 people can be seated inside the cockpit including the pilots.

The age of internet is nothing new and commerce over the internet is a growing phenomenon despite several phishing attempts that has made several penniless; purchase of air tickets proves it. A survey has shown that every fourth person in the UK buys his/her air ticket online. I am actually surprised that the numbers are as low as 25%; my expectation was over 50%.

The survey was conducted Nielsen Online and the sample considered wasn’t divulged. It also found that air tickets are the fourth most purchased item on the internet.

In the past two years, there has been a tiny rise of 3% in the number of air tickets sold on the internet. This clearly shows that not many people are stepping out of their traditional boundaries to try out the cyber experience of buying tickets.

Buying tickets over the internet gives shopper a whole new set of options that other means don’t. There are ways of self help to find the cheapest and lowest tickets and a whole new range of discounts. Maybe, a common air ticket shopper isn’t getting the right education in ecommerce.