This marks my 500th post to this blog, FlyingColors and it is quite the milestone for me.  I thought I would take this chance to reflect a bit on the blog and what I’ve been writing about.

I started the blog in July of 2008 or a little over 2 years ago.  I went from zero visitors (except family and friends) to about 800 monthly individual visitors in October of 2009.  Frankly, I was pretty impressed that that many visitors came to the blog then. 

In October of 2009, I decided to up the stakes and made it a goal to write something for every day of the week.  I wasn’t sure I could or would even want to but it was an interesting goal for me and I went about doing it.  I started with doing a post for every weekday and finally moved into doing at least one every day. 

In January, I had 1600 individual visitors and for the month of September, I had over 3600 individual visitors.  Repeat visits put the numbers in the tens of thousands but I’m more interested in the individual visits because it represents the true growth in my view.

One odd thing on this blog, to me anyway, is that it never seems to stir many comments.  There are  a couple of semi regulars who make comments here but I’ve wondered at times if I fail to stir controversy.  Other times, I wonder if someone is playing a joke on me and found a way to bump my visitor counts on my web analytics software. 

The average visitor to this blog that isn’t referred from a search engine stays on the site for over 5 minutes / visit.  Those referred by a search engine remain on the site for an average just a touch over 2 minutes / visit.

Frankly, I wondered if I could keep writing about the airline industry for even a few months.  More than two years later, I’ve learned that just when I’m running out of ideas, airlines will cooperate and do something stirring.  This is where I tip my hat to Southwest for surprising the hell out of me last week.

In two years, a lot has changed in the airline industry.  We got two SuperLegacy airlines and now we’re seeing the first truly large merger of two LCC carriers.  I think we’ll see one or two more sizeable mergers in the next two years if conditions continue as they are. 

I’ve really struck out at American Airlines in the last year and I think it is because while virtually every other airline in the US has become a pretty dynamic enterprise, American continues to work furiously at maintaining the status quo.  For such a large and legendary airline, it’s a disappointing era to watch. 

I really thought that we would see the 787 in service by now.  I believed it would take longer than the original predictions of going into service but I also believed it would be well into service with a number of airlines by now.  It’s disappointing that it appears it will not hit that milestone until next year.   It is remarkable that this airliner was first announced as the 7E7 in January of 2003. 

It’s also remarkable just how much discipline airlines have shown in the last 2 years.  I am a bit in awe of the restraint shown when it comes to capacity growth.  That said, I don’t believe for one bit that it is the new order for the US airline industry.  Someone is going to blink some time soon.

This year has found some interesting developments for the blog.  Imagine my surprise when I noticed a huge jump in visitors from France and discovered it was being quoted and debated heavily on a French aviation forum.   Just as I finished chuckling over that, there was a sudden jump in visitors from Norway.  In the last week, FlyingColors has suddenly found an audience in Indonesia of all places. 

In the past 12 months, there has been an interesting development in Google referrals.  The top 10 international Google search referrals come from (in order):  France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Poland, Italy, Spain and (oddly enough) the Phillipines.   The next largest group of referrals come from US military bases with the Air Force bases leading the pack. 

Another source of traffic is other bloggers.  I really enjoy the others out there blogging about aviation.  I like the Cranky Flier because he doesn’t pull punches.  I thoroughly enjoy the pilots on FL250 and Flight Level 390 and if you don’t read Aviatrix at Cockpit Conversations, you should if only because she’s a thoroughly intelligent and entertaining read.  You’ll find no better honest brokers of airline news than on the Dallas Morning News Airline Biz Blog.   No one is more enthusiastic and geeky about airlines, aircraft and in-flight entertainment than Flightblogger and Runway Girl.  I thoroughly enjoy Randy’s Journal over at Boeing’s website (both Randy’s) and I’ve really enjoyed posts by Randy version 2.0 in the last year about what is happening at Boeing.

What I hope for in the next year is more comments from readers.  I’ve enjoyed the few debates I’ve had and more than once someone has managed to make me revisit an opinion later on.  The only comments I’ve ever rejected are spam and I’ve never edited a comment and don’t plan to for any reason.

So, if you’re visiting today, thanks for showing up.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have and I’m off to write the 501st post and I’ve got to find a worthy subject first.

Filed under: Trivia by ajax