One can of worms, please. Unopened

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Gulliver was surprised to discover last night that, on what was by no means a slow news day, CNN.com deemed this story to be worthy of the lead slot on its international edition. The article suggests that Tahera Ahmad, a 31-year-old Muslim chaplain, was discriminated against by a United Airlines flight attendant and verbally abused by fellow passengers. Writing about the altercation on Facebook while still airborne, Ms Ahmad recounted asking the cabin crew member for an unopened can of Diet Coke “due to hygienic reasons”. The United employee refused. Cans have to be opened by attendants, she explained, because company guidelines warn that pressurised containers could potentially be used as weapons...

Shrinks in the cockpit

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In the aftermath of the deliberate crashing of Germanwings Flight 9525, pilots cautioned against a knee-jerk reaction to the tragedy by airlines and safety regulators. With hindsight, perhaps, alarm bells should have been ringing about Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old first officer who flew his plane into the French Alps, killing 150. He had been treated for severe depression in 2009, and is thought to have hidden sick notes from his bosses before the crash. Yet we also know that Germanwings followed industry guidelines for dealing with mental-health concerns. Harbouring gloomy thoughts does not preclude someone from having a pilot’s licence...

You kill it, you carry it

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Examples of multinational companies forgoing business on purely ethical grounds are rare. Despite fine words, corporations are by nature profit-maximisers. Their remit is to make money without stepping over the law; separating right from wrong, they often argue, is the job of governments and regulators. Even so, there are occasions when a perfectly legal practice is so unpalatable to the public, and any association with it so damaging to the brand, that morality is difficult to ignore...

A human response to a human tragedy

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It has been less than a week since the catastrophic loss of Germanwings Flight 9525 and its precious cargo of 144 passengers and six crew. In that short time investigators have pointed the finger of blame squarely at Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old first officer who appears to have locked his captain out of the flight deck and deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps. Though incomprehensible, his gruesome deed is not without precedent for commercial pilots. Fear of falling victim to such asymmetric evil will, inevitably, plague the minds of the 9m passengers who take to the skies each day. It will take time to soothe their concerns. But one Germanwings pilot has already started the healing process, unburdening his heart with emotional, pre-flight speeches to passengers...

Gulf carriers feeling the heat

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Allegations of unfair competition are nothing new for the Gulf's carriers. The region’s big three airlines—Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways—have long been accused of receiving government subsidies by their rivals in Europe and America. But supporting evidence has been in short supply. That apparently changed yesterday, when a group of airlines disclosed details of “obvious and massive” Gulf-carrier subsidies totalling $42bn since 2004. The findings have been submitted to the American government in a 55-page dossier urging a re-think of Washington’s open-skies treaty with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)...

Booking flights with bitcoin

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Most stories about bitcoin, a digital currency loved and loathed in equal measure, focus on the future potential of the technology, rather than its present-day usefulness. This story is no different. Earlier this month, UATP, a payment network for airlines, announced it was teaming up with Bitnet, a bitcoin processing platform, to offer 260 of the world’s largest carriers the option of accepting the currency for flight bookings. UATP merchants provide 95% of global airline capacity, counting among their ranks mainstream brands such as British Airways, Lufthansa, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines. The company also works with 130,000 travel agencies, plus big rail operators such as Amtrak. None of these partners, it must be stressed, has said it will add a ‘Pay With Bitcoin’ button to its website. But the potential to do so is now there. And that is more than enough to get the bitcoin faithful excited by the development...

MH370: Eyes in the sky

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The loss, literally, of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March 2014 was an incomprehensible tragedy for the 239 souls aboard and the loved ones they left behind. It was also a devastating blow to an industry that prides itself on impeccable safety standards. As the hopelessness of the investigation became apparent, Tony Tyler, the boss of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade body that represents most large airlines, declared: "We must never let another aircraft go missing in this way." Industry chiefs rallied behind him, voicing bewilderment and outrage that, in this day and age, a commercial widebody jet could simply vanish. One year on, with their rhetoric fading into memory, what progress has been made to ensure that Flight 370 forever remains a cruel anomaly...

APD: It’s a London thing

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The decision by George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, to scrap air passenger duty (APD) on children is unlikely to appease many of his pro-aviation critics. Penalising families had been one of the main complaints levied against the tax, which on some routes has increased nearly tenfold since its introduction 20 years ago. Another common criticism was that APD unfairly punishes Caribbean travellers because of the rudimentary way it is calculated. (Distances are measured to a country’s capital city, making the tax on a 4,400-mile flight to Trinidad higher than on a 7,200-mile flight to Hawaii.) This irregularity, too, was rectified in Mr Osborne’s autumn statement, Britain's mini budget...

Meetings in Mogadishu

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Around the world certain cities have sadly become synonymous with war, brutality and lawlessness. For the business traveller, particularly the Western business traveller, Baghdad surely ranks among the most feared of assignments. Tripoli looks to be going that way soon. Beirut, long considered a byword for chaos, has in recent times rehabilitated its image. But of all the godforsaken places on the planet, Mogadishu, the damned capital of Somalia, evokes uniquely and impenetrably negative connotations. So it was with some trepidation that Gulliver set foot on the tarmac of Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport...

WOW Air throws a curve-ball

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In an attempt to live up to its name, WOW Air, an Icelandic low cost carrier, caused some excitement last month by unveiling promotional fares of $99 one-way for its upcoming transatlantic routes. Prices have since nearly doubled, but even so they remain competitive with Norwegian Air Shuttle, currently the only other true budget carrier offering flights from Europe to North America. Norwegian keeps its prices in check, in part, by flying the most up-to-date, fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliners. So how does WOW compete? The answer, quite simply, is geography...

A modest proposal for the equitable treatment of the taller passenger

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This blog often applauds the impact that low-cost carriers have on the travelling habits of everyday consumers. Thanks to a canny mixture of operational efficiency and commercial flexibility, these airlines are opening up the world to vacationers like never before. In Europe, once-obscure destinations far off the beaten tracks of travel agencies have blossomed into popular retreats. User-generated content on websites such as TripAdvisor has further empowered travellers, delivering more or less objective destinations guides. With this in mind, and with a few days booked off work, Gulliver recently boarded a Wizz Air flight to Sibiu in central Romania...

Little Red's big problem

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When Virgin Atlantic Airways announced the launch of its domestic British feeder airline, Little Red, in late 2012, Gulliver was among the rabble of aviation hacks scratching his head and wondering what on earth Sir Richard Branson, the airline’s founder, was up to. The number of domestic air passengers in Britain had fallen by 23% since 2005, with British Airways (BA) and a handful of low-cost carriers amply satisfying what little demand remained. In any case, although grumbling about the rail network is a national pastime, most Brits concede that trains are a more cost-effective, convenient and environmentally guilt-free mode of transport (not to mention one that Sir Richard owns a good share of with his Virgin Trains franchise)...

Sleep tight

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Nine Hours, a Japanese hotelier that provides ultra-economical, pod-style accommodation, has opened a new location at Narita Airport in Tokyo. The concept of capsule hotels is nothing new—the first such establishment opened in Osaka in 1979, and they have grown in popularity among frugal travellers, inebriated office workers and even the unemployed—but this is the first time sleeping pods have appeared at airports. Gulliver is surprised it didn’t happen sooner...

Bridging the Gulf

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In February, Kamal Ahmed, the transport minister of the tiny Gulf state of Bahrain, told Arabian Business that “no-one wants” the top job at Gulf Air, the country’s flag-carrier. It was a candid admission for a company that, long before the rise of super-connectors Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways, had once been considered the Middle East’s pre-eminent airline. Several foreign candidates had been offered the job, Mr Ahmed explained, but all turned it down over fears of political interference. Given that Gulf Air’s nine-strong board includes four serving ministers plus an advisor to the Crown Prince, they may have had a point...

Making low-cost long-haul flights work

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Low-cost long-haul flying has been a notoriously difficult nut to crack ever since Laker Airways, a transatlantic British airline, introduced the concept in 1977. It went bust five years later. Numerous other carriers have since come and gone, but none has managed to combine bargain airfares with long-haul intercontinental flights and survive. Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, continues to whet appetites with promises of €10 ($14) flights to North America. But bombastic claims are nothing new for Mr O’Leary, who privately admits that the cost of aircraft and high fuel prices mean it is not currently practical...

Aegean stable

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Holidaymakers will have been forgiven for steering clear of Athens at the height of the euro-zone crisis, when anti-austerity protests turned violent across the Greek capital. Footfall at Athens International Airport fell from 16.2m in 2009 to 12.9m in 2012. The foreign exodus was compounded by weak domestic demand, which slumped 26% as Greeks tightened their belts. The September 2009 launch of Olympic Air, a re-privatised version of Greece’s flag carrier, could not have been timed worse. Within months the carrier, which flies mostly domestic routes, tried to merge with Aegean Airlines, the country’s main international operator, as its only means of survival. European competition regulators threw out its proposal...

Discrimination at 30,000 feet

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South African Airways (SAA) has been taken to task by Solidarity, a trade union, over its discriminatory hiring practices for pilots. The union is angry with the state-owned carrier's decision not to admit Daniël Hoffman to its cadet pilot programme for the second year in a row. Mr Hoffman, whose theory and psychometric tests were described as exceptional by Solidarity, is a white male. That puts him at a handicap against other applicants because of the airline's self-professed bias towards hiring black, coloured (mixed race), Indian or white female pilots...

Russia's battle for Ukrainian skies

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On February 28th an Atlasjet flight from Istanbul to Crimea made a U-turn over the Black Sea and headed back to Turkey. The pilots had been informed that Simferopol Airport, the main gateway to the peninsula, was occupied by unidentified armed men. Few doubted that the assailants were Russian special forces, whose seizure of strategic buildings would mark the beginning of the annexation of Crimea. It did not take foreign airlines long to see the writing on the wall. Atlasjet, Turkish Airlines, Azerbaijan Airlines and Latvia’s Air Baltic all suspended flights to the peninsula. So too, eventually, did Ukraine’s flag-carrier, Ukraine International Airlines...

Israel opening UP

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Whether you have flown with El Al or not, any mention of Israel's flag carrier will almost certainly evoke images of iron-fisted security in your mind. The airline protects its flight crew, most of whom are former Air Force pilots, behind two reinforced cockpit doors; armed sky marshals mingle with passengers on every flight; and ground staff run psychological profiles on travellers as they pass through Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Such measures have kept Israelis safe from airborne terror attacks since the 1970s. But they are also expensive, which makes this month's launch of UP, the new low-cost brand of El Al, eyebrow-raising...

Fragmented flag carriers

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Back in 2012, The Economist reported that four flag carriers from the Balkans were considering a merger. The logic was sound. When the seven former Yugoslav states went their own way in the 1990s, each set up its own flag carrier as an affirmation of independence. But some, such as Kosovo, a state which is only recognised by 100 or so countries and which covers just 11,000 square miles, needed a national airline about as much as they did a space programme. Kosova Airlines thus ceased operations in 2006. MAT Macedonian Airlines followed suit in 2009...