On October 31 2010 Air India bid farewell to its short-lived European hub at Frankfurt Airport, in Germany. Air India had established a hub in Frankfurt only 17 months before its closure, however despite referring to the Frankfurt hub as “crucial” the airlines’ expansion, Air India quickly determined that the hub inefficient. With the airline…
Israel’s Constitution defines the nation as a “Jewish and Democratic State,” as such the formerly state owned national airline, El Al Israel Airlines, does not fly on The Sabbath. To get around Sabbath travel restrictions and service certain European destinations, Sun d’Or was established on the 1st of October 1977 (originally as El Al Charter…
How do airports within a United Nations sanctioned No Fly Zone continue to show regularly scheduled flights? How do airlines banned from entering the European Union due to political sanctions show scheduled flights into and out of the European Union? The answer can be summed up in three words … The Libyan Government. I am…
It’s probably best to start this post with the two questions you’ll have at the end of this post 1) How does an airline not notice it is overpaying its CEO US$4,700,000 in bonuses over four years? 2) Why does an airline think its Board of Director’s insurance company should repay US$1,000,000 of that back…
Six days ago an 8.9 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan and a triggered a tsunami that washed over Sendai Airport, in the Miyagi Prefecture, 166 miles north of Narita Airport, turning the airport into a lake. As of today construction crews have cleared nearly 5,000 feet of runway 9/27, which is 9,842 feet in length. The…
India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation has recently released a list of fifty-six airline pilots flying in India that have failed sobriety tests over the past two years. This release, while disturbing unto itself isn’t the surprising part of the story … … the surprising part of the story is that twenty thee of the pilots…
There are many actions mother nature can inflict to grind travel to a halt, wind, ice, turbulence, lightening … but today Mother Nature unleashed one of the most unpredictable and devastating actions in Japan, a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake. While this earthquake caused mass transit in Tokyo to stop entirely, something that almost never happens…
Operating an airline is expensive and complex and it seems many airlines seem to be in existence only because their government keeps them afloat. In 1932 Air India was created, as Tata Airlines, a mail carrier. In 1953 Tata Airlines was nationalized and renamed Air India, an international airline, while Indian Airlines was created as…
POST EDITED ON 10-MARCH-2011 : CORRECT AN ERROR IN THE FINANCIAL NUMBERS CAUSED BY A SPELL CHECKER The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) budget is enormous, but is the agency prioritizing and allocating its funds in the most effective manner? At present the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lists the TSA’s budget at US$8,164,780,000 with US$7,910,780,000…
This past Sunday evening, as the sun was setting over Frankfurt Airport, I had the opportunity to wander freely around a Lufthansa Airbus A380-800 at a Lufthansa Technik hanger as a guest of the airline. Yesterday I wrote about the A380’s three classes of cabins and what passengers can expect on board … today, it’s…
